I hereby predict that you, President Goodluck Ebelechukwu Jonathan, will be the final sacrificial lamb to be burnt on the altar of Nigeria.
I hereby predict that you, President Goodluck Ebelechukwu Jonathan, will be the final sacrificial lamb to be burnt on the altar of Nigeria.
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Right now, you’re carrying a pack of woods on your head, like Isaac the son of Abraham. You’re walking behind your minder and asking sheepishly, “Father, where is the lamb to be used for sacrifice?” Your minder tells you that God will bring the lamb to be used for sacrifice. As you pass bonfire after bonfire, you tell your brethren that it is a burden they have to bear.
Mr. President, the situation of things in Nigeria has set my imagination running wild.
In the light of the accelerating descent into the abyss; the continuing denial of you, Mr. President, and the great majority of the people, that the current structure of the nation is unworkable; and the bunch of uncommitted people placed in charge of that country, I hereby make the following predictions:
Come next year, Nigerians will finally confront the long postponed question: “To be or not to be.” We’ve had the chance to answer the lesser question, “How to be and how not to be.” But we chose to punt. When the time comes, there won’t be any option to revert to the latter question.
Judging from the way things are going, the Boko Haram terrorists will finally force that question on Nigerians. By taking the theatre of the fight into the church, the final and most intricate of all fronts has been opened.
These deductions are fairly easy to arrive at. As it is said in the movie, The American President, when people are thirsty for genuine leadership, “they will crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there is no water they will drink the sand.”
Mr. President, “people do not drink sand because they’re thirsty. People drink sand because they do not know the difference.” The wind of the last one year has exposed your behind. You’ve shown yourself to be a wimp of a president, incapable of holding your own or inspiring a nation.
But this is not the most dangerous aspect of it.
What is dangerous is that you, President Jonathan, have lost the sympathy of those who believed in you and the attention of those who saw, from the very beginning, how empty you were. As the human sacrifices going on in Nigeria continue and as you, Mr. President, continue to dance the night away, at the very end you will be the final sacrifice.
I’m sure there is a part of you that knows this and a part of you that is wallowing in denial.
Mr. President, you’re on course to be sacrificed at the altar of your own naivety. What is sad is that nobody will cry for you because when others were being sacrificed, you did not cry for them.
The tragedy, however, is not that nobody will cry for you; rather, it is that your sacrifice will not be sufficient to pacify the angry souls lost in 97 years of the Nigerian experiment. It takes the sacrifice of a great man with moral authority to wash away sins.
More than any other time in Nigerian history, I am afraid. Not for you, the president. Not for Nigeria, but for the congregation of factors that are once again coming together and setting the stage for our skirmishes to lead to nowhere. If this happens again, our day of reckoning will be postponed even after your sacrifice.
Mr. President, please note that men predict not out of knowledge but out of fear. By stringing together the tears of yesterday and the jeers of today, soothsayers can predict the weird occurrences of tomorrow.
I am not a soothsayer, Mr. President. I only have a hunch. I dare to publicize my hunch not because I want it to come to pass. I do so because I want those who care to be aware and to do everything possible to prevent it. I want them to prove me wrong.
I do not want to say I told you so. At the same time, I do not want those concerned to later say that what happened was a ‘failure of imagination.’ Those who have spared a minute to think about Nigeria are not surprised at the deterioration of today.
For those who know but do not care and those who care but do not know, Nigeria is in danger, but you, Mr. President, are in greater danger.
The more we wait for God to come down from heaven and fight for us, the more we run out of time and options. As it stands now, there are no good options. We can save you, the president, and let Nigeria be sacrificed. Or we can save Nigeria and let you, the president, be sacrificed. We cannot possibly save the two at once.
I wish you a Happy New Year, even though I know it won’t be happy.
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